Tomás looked at her with a mixture of annoyance and false tenderness.
—Valen, that’s enough. You’re making a fool of yourself.
—Don’t call me that.
—Come on. Let’s talk downstairs.
—No.
Tomás’s smile faded for barely a second.
—Don’t make this any bigger.
Valentina took a deep breath.
Sebastian saw her do it.
Like someone preparing to jump from a high place knowing that there may be stones below.
“I didn’t come here last night to cheat on you,” she said. “I came because I left you three months ago, and you wouldn’t let go. I changed my number twice. I stopped going to my favorite coffee shop. I worked in secret from home. And yet you still kept showing up. In front of my building. In front of the studio. In front of the supermarket. You made me feel like I was being stalked in my own life.”
Tomás let out an incredulous laugh.
—Please. You’re exaggerating to impress him.
Valentina shook her head.
And for the first time, Sebastian saw something hard in his expression.
—No. I’m speaking out because I understood something last night. I spent years putting my life on hold to take care of others, to fulfill obligations, to avoid bothering anyone. Even last night… even in this bed… I kept the truth to myself for fear of how people would look at me. And I don’t want to live like this anymore.
Thomas narrowed his eyes.
—Think carefully about what you’re going to say.
Sebastian took a step forward, but Valentina stopped him with a look.
I needed to do it alone.
—I have your messages saved. Your audio recordings. The photos of my scratched door. The recordings of the calls where you threaten to “ruin” me if I report you. Everything.
The color of Tomás’s face changed by only one shade.
Little.
But that’s enough.
Sebastian saw it.
Valentina too.
“You’re lying,” said Thomas, and that was the first time he sounded nervous.
—No. And I’m not the only one who has it. Last night, before going upstairs, I sent it all to a friend. With instructions to hand it over if anything happened to me.
True fury then appeared on Tomás’s face.
The charm was gone.
There was no more diplomacy.
Just a man whose mask had just been ripped off.
“You were always ungrateful,” she spat. “I pulled you out of the emptiness you were living in. Nobody looked at you. Nobody was going to choose you. And this is how you repay me.”
Sebastian took a step forward.
Now yes.
Now there was no possible action.
—I’ve heard enough.
Tomás pointed it out.
—You stay out of it.
—She’s already spoken. Now you’re leaving.
For a second it seemed that Tomás was going to jump on him.
Tense shoulders.
Jaw clenched.
The deranged gaze.
But something in Sebastian’s expression made him stop.
Perhaps it was the calm.
Perhaps it was the brutal certainty that this time he wasn’t facing a woman alone.
Thomas took a step back.
Then another one.
Before entering the elevator, he looked at Valentina with pure hatred.
—You’re going to regret it.
The doors closed.
And only then did Valentina’s body really begin to tremble.
Sebastian locked the apartment door.
She took two steps, nothing more.
Then it collapsed.
No to the ground.
Against him.
As if all the strength she had gathered to speak had suddenly evaporated.
Sebastian held her by instinct.
He hugged her with a firmness he hadn’t planned to feel.
Valentina cried silently against his chest at first.
Then with a deep, ancient, weary pain.
He said nothing.
There were no elegant phrases for that.
He just let her cry.
Several minutes passed before she could move away.
Her face was wet and her voice was hoarse.
-Sorry.
Sebastian looked at her as if he didn’t understand that word.
—Don’t ever apologize to me again for surviving.
Valentina closed her eyes.
And something in her face changed.
As if no one had ever said anything like that to him.
He took a breath.
He looked at the unmade bed at the end of the hallway.
The stained sheets.
The impossible night that began as an agreement with no future and dawned transformed into something else.
Much more dangerous.
Much more realistic.
“Last night I told you I didn’t believe in love,” she murmured.
Valentina slowly raised her gaze.
Sebastian barely smiled, without irony this time.
—I think I lied.
She watched him in silence.
Not naively.
Not with easy relief.
But with that mixture of fear and hope of someone who already knows the price of trusting.
“Don’t promise me things you don’t know yet,” she whispered.
He nodded.
—Then I promise you just one. You won’t go through this alone again.
Valentina took a deep breath.
Then he looked towards the city beyond the windows.
Buenos Aires was still there.
Wet.
Immense.
Viva.
The storm had ended.
But inside, for the first time in many years, fear was not the only thing left.
There was also room.
For the truth.
For rabies.
For tenderness.
And perhaps for something that neither of them had gone looking for that night… but which was now impossible to ignore.
Sebastian took her hand.
This time, without any urgent desire.
Without masks.
Only with a new calm.
And Valentina, still trembling, squeezed it back.
